In Boston, you should rent out an entire apartment or house, while in Seattle, apartments that accommodate 4 guests do best

Renting out an entire apartment or house in Boston is likely to result in good revenues. Expect to receive annual revenues of $6,100 for an entire apartment and $6,700 for an entire house.

Not only is this well above the average revenue ($4,600) of an Airbnb listing in Boston, apartments and houses constitute the lion’s share of listings in Boston. Hence, the demand for this type of properties is relatively healthy.

While there might be other property types (Bed & Breakfast, loft, etc.) that generated higher revenues, they comprised a smaller proportion of Boston’s listings and are thus more likely to serve a smaller niche market.

In addition, properties that accommodate more guests are also more likely to generate higher revenues in Boston. In fact, the average revenue for properties accommodating 4 guests was almost twice the revenue for properties accommodating 3 guests. Listings that accommodate 6 guests received the best revenues in 2015. However, these listings are relatively scarce, so the market for this segment may not be huge.

Revenues of listings can vary a lot, just like the revenues of hosts. 50% of the listings in Boston received under $2,300 in revenue in 2015, while the top 25% of the listings received over $5,520.

If you are looking for the perfect Airbnb listing in Seattle, look no further than apartments accommodating 4 guests. There were 336 properties of this category listed in 2015, and they generated an average annual revenue of $4,500.

For comparison purposes, Airbnb listings in Seattle fetched an average revenue of $3,400 in 2015.

Renting out an entire boat garnered an estimated annual revenue of $9,000, far trumping any other properties. However, this figure should be treated with care since only 2 such properties were listed in 2015.

If you are renting out an entire house or apartment, by far the most common listings found in Seattle, you can reasonably expect to receive $4,500 and $4,000 respectively.

In Seattle, properties that accommodate more guests also generated higher revenues in 2015. Once again, the ideal number of guests appears to be 4 as these properties generated relatively high revenues while still serving a sizeable market.

Listings with 2 bedrooms also fetched relatively high revenues while still catering to a large market. The impact of having more than 2 bedrooms is often negligible. This is especially true when we consider the smaller market size for listings with more than 4 bedrooms.

Revenue disparity does exists in Seattle as well. 50% of properties generated less than $1,800 in revenues in 2015, while the top 25% of properties fetched over $4,500.